


A Game Of Pretend

by athingofvikings, wikelia



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Author collaboration, Crossposted from Tumblr and FF.net, F/M, Modern AU, sad fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-22 00:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12469384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athingofvikings/pseuds/athingofvikings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wikelia/pseuds/wikelia
Summary: Modern AU. Hiccup and Astrid are having a normal conversation on the phone, or so Astrid thinks. Oneshot.





	A Game Of Pretend

There wasn't any blood on his face, but Hiccup still felt his vision go blurry. His fingers were touching the sticky hot liquid on his stomach, trying to staunch the flow. With a painful grunt, he slipped away from the wall that had been holding him up, and he fell to the dirty ground; his injured arm took the bulk of the impact and he cried out despite himself, a few tears splashing the ground without his permission.

He laid there for a moment, and them realized that his phone was still in his back pocket.  It took nearly every bit of effort he had, but he managed to twist his phone out from his pocket, managing to keep his screams down to agonized grunts.

The screen was cracked, and he managed to wryly comment, “Here goes nothing...” and hit the power button.

 _Emergency Call_ hovered in front of him as the screen lit up.

The ambulance wouldn't get here on time. There was no point. This was it.

He wasn't going to bother calling them. Hiccup shakily unlocked the phone, and hit the shortcut labeled with Astrid’s name and a phone icon. 

After three terrifying rings, his wife picked up the phone.

"Hello? Hiccup?"

"Hey, Ast," he grit out, not making a single agonized sound, no matter how much he wanted to cry out in pain, "what's up?"

Her voice sounded relieved over the phone. "Everything's fine at the office. How did it go? No injuries or anything?"

Hiccup laughed - it would come out as cocky to her, ironic to him. "Of course not. You know me - careful is my middle name."

"I thought it was horrendous."

They both laughed - Hiccup rested his head against the wall with his blood on it, hanging on to her voice. He was going to die. He was going to die right here.

“Your day doing all right?” he asked.  “I went for a walk after the meeting to try out the new prosthetic.”

“How did it go?”

“All right,” he managed, glancing at the broken stump of shattered fiberglass and bent metal attached to his leg.  “How about you?”

“Well, I finished up work early, and...”

He kept the conversation going, wanting to hear her cheerful voice. He didn't want to let go of her, but if he was going to, he didn't want to hear her cry. It might make the pain even worse. It was selfish, but he needed this.

His breath started coming out short, so he let Astrid do most of the talking, which he had no problem with anyway. She told him about her day, and Hiccup felt his eyelids trying to close, but he kept them open for as long as he could, until it seemed unbearable and there were tears flowing down his cheeks.

"Astrid," he whispered, interrupting what she was saying, "I love you."

Her laugh was the last thing he heard as the phone slipped from his hand and he slumped over.

"I love you too, babe. I had a surprise to tell you at home, but since you're getting all emotional on me right now, I'll just tell you. I, uh, well, you know the pregnancy tests I bought yesterday? Hiccup - they came out positive! ...Hello? Are you speechless, I bet Fishlegs ten that you would be. Come on, babe, say something. Hello? Hiccup? Hiccup, we're having a kid! Hiccup?"

 ###

 

Astrid dove through the hospital doors almost before they managed to open in front of her and ran, her phone still held to her ear.  "I'm here!  Where do I go!?"

"Follow the red line on the floor to the ER, Mrs. Haddock," the calm voice of the EMT said, and then there was a moment's hesitation.  "And I'm sorry, but I have to ask... since the muggers took his wallet, do you know if he's an organ donor?"

Astrid felt her whole body chill at that question and the implication behind it. Was she too late…?  Taking a deep breath, she nodded, and then realized that the EMT couldn't see the motion.  "He is.  Said that it was important... but that he never expected...  Oh god!"  She choked, hearing Hiccup's sarcastic comment in her memories. _It's like insurance, right?  You do it just in case, not because it's actually going to happen..._

She found the red line and started to run down the hallway at top speed, her stomach churning from something aside from the morning sickness.  Curse the hospital’s inadequate parking; she'd had to find a spot on the other side of the hospital from the emergency room... a spot not far from where her OG-BYN's office was, actually.  Now she had to run like she’d never run before.

"Ma'am, it's fine!  We just had to know.  Just in case."

She didn't have the breath to reply; she was running flat out down the hallway, darting around other patients and doctors like they were opponents on the sports field.  At least one orderly or nurse yelled at her to stop running, but she ignored them.

The red line of paint on the worn linoleum of the floor and the phone at her ear were the entirety of her existence.  

"How is he?" she gasped out, still clutching the phone to her ear like a lifeline.  An hour ago, she'd been ready to share the news with Hiccup that he was going to be a father.

Now... she might be a widow before the nice dinner that she'd left half-assembled on the kitchen counter.  The front door to their home was hanging open from her hurry to get here. 

"We've got him stable, but he's lost a lot of blood from the stab wounds, and there's internal bleeding from the beating he took.  We've got three IVs giving him whole blood, plus saline.  We're going to get him into the operating room as soon as the surgeon is ready to deal with the gut wou--shit!  Stop that bleeder!"

A flurry of alarms came over the phone as Astrid rounded a corner at speed, nearly crashing into some old grandfather using a walker followed by his IV stand.  "Paul!?  EMT Emerson!?  What's happening?"

The EMT didn't answer, but the talk she was hearing over the phone-- _Hiccup's_ phone, which she had still not hung up on since this nightmare had begun forty minutes ago, and she was going to kick his ass for not calling the ambulance as soon as the muggers had left him in that alley--terrified her.  Not their tone, but the content hidden among the professional jargon.  She understood quite well what a 'crashing BP' meant, or 'internal hemorrhaging.'

The red line terminated in front of a pair of battered swing doors, above which there was a sign reading EMERGENCY ROOM.

She burst through the doors just as the phone delivered a shrill alarm to her ear, and the call for a crash cart. 

###

 

Fishlegs sat next to Astrid as the machines beeped around them.

Three hours of surgery.  Sixteen pints of blood.  A nicked artery in the intestines that had torn open as soon as they'd started raising his blood pressure.  And six stab wounds to the abdomen for the blood to leak out of, plus broken bones, cracked ribs, badly bruised kidneys and liver, a perforated intestine, and purpling bruises on his skin whose imprints made clear impressions of boot heels and fists.

If they hadn't had him in the ER right at that moment when the artery had burst, he would have died.  As it was, the surgeon had told them that it had been touch and go at several points as they’d sutured his arteries shut and had to remove part of his liver.

All over forty dollars and a worn leather wallet and irrational hate over someone who ‘walked funny’. 

They'd already caught the three skinheads who had decided that beating up on a guy with a prosthetic leg would be a fun way to pass a little time.  The one with the knife--still wet with traces of Hiccup's blood caught in the crevasses--had been charged with attempted murder, and his buddies, who had held Hiccup up to be stabbed, were being charged with aiding and abetting.  They hadn’t gone far; just around the corner to a nearby bar where they’d bought some beers and snacks with Hiccup’s credit card.

They were protesting that they were innocent, but that was a little hard to get away with when one of them had been caught with Hiccup's wallet, doing gross things with Hiccup's pictures of Astrid, and another's boots made perfect matches for the bruises. 

The fascist symbols on the boot heels that matched the one on the bruise above Hiccup's kidneys were rather a giveaway...

Fishlegs took a deep sigh.  Stoick would see to it that the two-legged animals that had nearly killed his son would be prosecuted.  Meanwhile, Astrid was finally asleep in the chair next to him. 

Now... they just had to wait for Hiccup to wake up. 

And hope that nothing else would go wrong.

Meanwhile, she had a death grip on his half-broken phone, which she'd reclaimed from the EMTs during the surgery.

He reached over to take it from her and put it to charge with hers, but her eyes snapped open as soon as he touched it. An instant later, she managed to pull the punch to his gut so that it only hurt, rather than knocking the wind from him. 

Staggering back, he wheezed, "You weren't asleep."

"I tried, but I can't.  Not with these... _things_ beeping."

Fishlegs held his hand to his aching gut and nodded.  "Okay."

The nurse came in as the two of them were looking at each other.  Ignoring them, she added something to Hiccup's IV.

"What's that?" Astrid asked anxiously, like she had for every addition to the IV bag in the last six hours.

"Antibiotic for the gastrointestinal perforation--we want to prevent peritonitis from developing," she said professionally.

"And that means?" Astrid asked desperately. 

The nurse gave a professionally even smile.  "Due to the injuries to the intestines, the bacteria inside could leak out into the abdominal cavity and cause infections," she said.  "So we're giving him a standard post-op prophylactic antibiotic."

Despite himself, Fishlegs asked, "What about the chance of resistant bacterial infection?"

The nurse gave him a momentary irritated look, as Astrid asked, "What's that?"

Sighing and shooting Fishlegs another dirty look, she said, "Some bacteria have evolved resistance to the standard antibiotics."  She nodded to indicate Hiccup.  "If he does come down with such an infection, we'll use the second-line antibiotics."  She reached out to Astrid.  "Your husband will be fine."

Astrid nodded and then turned green.  Staggering over to the room's wastebasket, she managed to get her face over it before she vomited into it. 

"Ma'am...  are you alright?" the nurse asked, sounding somewhat concerned.

Fishlegs winced, and stepped over to help Astrid, even if that was limited to handing her a bottle of water and holding her hair up out of the way.  Even as he did so, it felt wrong for him to be doing so, like he was usurping his friend's place at his wife's side. 

Astrid retched again, and gasped out, "I'm pregnant."

"Oh.  And..." the nurse glanced at Hiccup.  "He's the father?"  There was a pause.  "Does he know?"

Astrid gave a half-retch, half-sob.  "I told him... just as he was passing out from blood loss."

The nurse considered that and said, "I'll be right back."

She left, and Fishlegs helped Astrid, whose legs were shaking, back into the chair, and twisted open the bottle of water for her. 

In the background, the machines continued to beep. 

Hiccup was alive... stable... and not waking up anytime soon.  The damage was just too severe, and his body was focusing on healing itself.  If he woke up now, he’d be in agony.

Despite himself, Fishlegs took out his own phone and did a search.

He shouldn't have... because Astrid heard his little hissing gasp, and snatched the phone from his hands without so much as a question.

He grimaced, and a few moments later, she found what he'd searched for. 

 _"One in twenty-five patients gets infected_ in _the hospital!?_ "  She looked up at Fishlegs, her expression one of despair.  "Please, please, tell me that he'll be okay."

"He'll be okay," Fishlegs said with as much confidence as he could muster... and resisting the urge to tell her about MRSA, which was his biggest worry. 

He looked at the unconscious body on the bed.  Hiccup's prosthesis was busted, kicked to pieces by the brutes who had attacked him, and his friend looked so small and broken, his body pierced by tubes and kept alive with machines. 

The doctors had told them that if he made it through the night, he'd likely survive.

It was two in the morning.

And Fishlegs wanted to see his friend learn that he'd be a father. 

_Hang in there, Hiccup.  Just keep living.  Please._

###

Snotlout’s face was red by the time he reached the room Hiccup was in. He saw Astrid, looking ill and leaning against the wall, and Fishlegs, rocking back and forth on a chair with his eyes closed.

And then he saw his cousin, looking in the worst condition Snotlout had ever seen him in, with bruises and cuts and surrounded by machines.

Astrid saw him first, and she opened her mouth, but no words came out. He walked over to her and hugged her tightly. Her eyes were red and bloodshot.

“You’re going to be an uncle,” she whispered in his ear.

Snotlout’s eyes widened and he pulled back, looking her in the eyes, and she nodded with her eyes looking at the floor. “You’re actually…”

“Hiccup p-passed out either before or as I was telling him.”

“Holy shit,” Snotlout whispered, sitting down with his head in his hands. Fishlegs clapped a hand on his shoulder.

His cousin couldn’t have just called a damn ambulance instead of his wife. He _had_ to go ahead and be romantic instead. What about romanticizing _life?_ Astrid hadn’t been the one in danger.

But really, what else could Snotlout expect?

He settled in on one of the uncomfortable chairs and held Astrid’s hand as she stared dully at the monitors.  Once, he would have done anything to be holding her like this. 

Now, he wanted to yell and scream at that younger version of himself with a shout of “Are you _happy_ now!?”

Because he wasn’t. 

_Beep... beep... beep... beep..._

Snotlout hadn’t been in a hospital for anything worse than a broken arm from a bad moment on the field since his and Hiccup’s grandfather had died when they were young. 

And his memories kept reminding him of that moment of supreme loss when old Hamish had breathed his last and the beeps... stopped. 

He glanced over at Fishlegs, who had gotten here first; the big man looked worn out and tired, and said quietly, “‘Legs, head down to the cafeteria and get something to eat.  I’ll stay with ‘em.” 

Fishlegs looked like he was going to protest for a moment, and then nodded.  As he went to the door, Snotlout cocked his head towards Astrid. “And get something for her, too.”

Another nod, and his friend left to get food.

It wouldn’t help Hiccup any for his wife to starve herself... and she was eating for two. 

The nurse came by on her floor check, and he introduced himself as a part of the family.  He wanted to take her aside and ask, honestly, how bad it was... but there was no way that he was going to leave Astrid alone, or ask _that_ in front of her. 

So he watched as the woman in the blue scrubs did inscrutable things to the various machines, bags and tubes--what she was checking for, Snotlout had no idea--and then left.

He handled the nurse the next few times she came to check on Hiccup. Fishlegs just wasn’t handling it, and he didn’t want Astrid to be lingering on every word the woman said, she was already sick to her stomach.

Then he would sit back and try to calm himself down. It was going to be a long night, and Snotlout didn’t know if Hiccup was going to make it.

 

###

 

Astrid watched as the technician unhooked Hiccup from the dialysis machine; his color was much better than it had been before the treatment.  The kick to Hiccup’s back had injured his kidneys, and to let them heal and keep Hiccup from poisoning himself, they hooked her unconscious husband up to the machine for a few hours each day. 

They were also uncertain about nerve damage to his spine from the same kicks, and his primary doctor had advised her that, despite the liver and kidney damage, it was best to keep him sedated while he healed.  He would be in so much pain when he woke--and it was _when,_ not if, she assured herself--that they were trying to spare him that.

And she just had to hope that they knew what they were doing.  She’d been educating herself on what all of the various indicators meant... and the answers weren’t good. 

He’d lost so much blood--twice what his actual body would normally hold--that he’d be vulnerable to infection while his immune system built back up his antibodies, a thought that terrified her when she’d learned that knife wounds to the intestines were highly likely to become infected.

His ‘intact’ leg was broken in two places and they had needed to use metal pins to put the bones back together, and the skinheads had nearly torn his arm from the socket when they’d been holding him for their knife-carrying friend.  Those would take months to heal, and would require physical therapy.

They were cautiously optimistic that he wouldn’t need a kidney transplant and that the injured organ would heal... but the catheter tube that came out from under the sheet was filled with red, a sight that made her heart jump and her throat swell shut with fear every time she saw it. 

Her phone rang, and her heart sank when she saw the number.

Taking a deep breath, she answered it.  “Yes?”

“Hello, Mrs. Haddock.  This is Alvin, with the insurance company?  We spoke yesterday about your husband’s treatment.”

“I remember.  What about it?” 

“Your case is currently under review, but I’m afraid to inform you that due to the circumstances of your husband’s emergency, we are denying your application for the changed plan to apply to his current treatment, as it counts as a preexisting condition.”  He didn’t sound afraid.  He sounded as if he was enjoying what he was saying. 

Her heart sank.  They couldn’t afford his treatment without that change to the insurance plan.  The deductible was just too much, and Hiccup’s leg was only covered due to his work.

“Please, please, please, reconsider--” she started to say, only for him to cut her off.  “Ma’am, you’ll have to apply for an exemption and a review of your case.  Good day.” 

He hung up.

Astrid looked around the room, at the multiple complicated, _expensive_ machines keeping Hiccup alive...

And hunched her legs up into her chest and cried.  And then had to run for the wastebasket again, as the granola bar and orange that Snotlout had gotten her to eat suddenly turned sour in her stomach. 

 

###

 

“Hey, listen, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Ruffnut murmured, taking a glance back at the boys, who were talking in hushed whispers among themselves. Astrid’s eyes were closed, her face was flushed, and she was letting out labored breaths.

“It’s not okay.” Astrid bit her lip. “No one is sure if he’s gonna wake up or not. And even if he does, he’ll be in so much pain, so _much-_ ”

Ruff wrapped an arm around her, rubbing her shoulders. “He’s going to live. That’s gotta count for something.”

“Of course it does, but Ruff, how, in what universe, are we going to be able to pay for all of this?” Astrid put a hand over her mouth and released a sob.

Ruffnut and her brother had been about to board a flight when they were given the news. Fishlegs had texted them both multiple times, and, when they were about halfway there, added that Astrid was pregnant. Tuff had broken a lot of speed limits, and no one stopped him, especially not Ruff.

That had been a few days ago.

Now, she held up her crying friend, hugging her and rubbing her back. “Listen, we’re all going to help you. We’re your backbone, Astrid, we have been since high school.”

Astrid didn’t appear to hear her. Instead, she gasped, “Something’s wrong.”

“Astrid? Astrid!? What is it!?”

Astrid didn’t answer; her face was contorting with pain; she gave a heaving gasp and grasped her stomach like she was having period cramps dialed up to maximum and the knob broken off.  Her legs buckled and, most terrifyingly of all, a cry of sobbing pain pain escaped her.

Ruffnut swore as Astrid swayed and started to topple, her eyes rolling back into her head before they closed completely. 

“Help!” Ruffnut called as Astrid passed out into her arms. 

Snotlout swore and hit the button to call the nursing station, moving so fast and fluidly that Ruffnut would later realize that he’d been waiting to hit the alarm for hours.  Tuffnut helped her lower Astrid to the floor, both of them grunting with the effort as the other woman tried to unconsciously curl into a ball.  Fishlegs grabbed a pillow and stuck it under her head, and a moment later, the door swung open to reveal the duty nurse.

“What happened?”

Fishlegs said something technical that Ruffnut didn’t understand--it sounded like Sin-cop?--and then Ruffnut noticed that Astrid’s jeans were damp with blood. 

She shrieked and tried to tell the nurse, but couldn’t get the words out, instead just pointing frantically. 

The nurse understood, though; within a minute, there was a gurney coming in through the door and Astrid was loaded onto it by a pair of orderlies, who rushed her out of the door.  The nurse wasn’t looking too hopeful, though.

Ruffnut left with them, trying to understand, while Snotlout and Fishlegs stayed behind. 

But part of her understood what had happened all too well, and she was in denial.

An hour later, Astrid’s gynecologist confirmed it, although he used kind, technical terms, like “spontaneous miscarriage”...

Astrid had lost the baby.

Ruffnut didn’t cry often. But tears sprung to her eyes at this news. Hiccup probably hadn’t even heard enough to know Astrid was pregnant, and now he would have to get the news of the baby and the miscarriage all at once.

Ruff sat down, buried her face in her hands, and wondered why it had all gone so wrong so quickly for the Haddock family.

###

            Tuffnut stood by, feeling useless, as Stoick hugged his sobbing daughter-in-law, heedless of the hospital gown she was wearing, crying that she was going to lose him and had already lost the baby.  The big man had flown in a few hours ago, and was throwing his weight around.  He’d arranged to get both Hiccup and Astrid into a private room, and his lawyer, Gobber, was making sure that the skinheads wouldn’t get off with a slap on the wrist.  Gobber had left a little while ago, an ugly and oddly satisfied chuckle in his voice as he’d considered a way to make those three bastards’ lives hell. 

Tuffnut wished him the best of luck.  Apparently, due to some stupid law on the books around here, it was possible that they might even manage to get the three of them charged with murdering Astrid’s baby. 

Meanwhile, Stoick was assuring Astrid that he’d cover the costs.  Hiccup wouldn’t like that--he made a big deal about not needing his dad for anything--but, as far as Tuffnut was concerned, Hiccup had given up his right to protest over how they paid for his hospital bills when he’d wasted over ten minutes of time when he could have called the ambulance to make a dramatic romantic call instead, between the time he’d talked to her and the time she’d found where he was and sent the ambulance. 

As it was, thank god that he had installed that tracking software on his and Astrid’s phones after they both kept forgetting and misplacing them.  Otherwise, the ambulance would never have found him in time.

He shivered at the thought.

Ruffnut came in, carrying the duffel filled with Astrid’s clothes that she’d gotten from their house.  Thankfully, they hadn’t gotten robbed when Astrid had left in a hurry, but Stormfly had gotten out again, and Fishlegs and Snotlout had spent an hour using the tracking collar to retrieve the cat from the neighborhood’s park two days ago.  Toothless, at least, had stayed.

Tuff cocked his head.  There was something... off about the sound that the machine was making.  How long it had been going on, he didn’t know; the nurse had last checked maybe fifteen minutes earlier.  He listened carefully.  It was very subtle, but he was sure that it was there.

He was about to get to his feet and call attention to it when Hiccup stirred.

###

He was alive.

That was surprising for some reason, but he couldn’t remember why...

Blinking, he moaned, and a hospital room swam into blurry view.

His dad was looking down at him with concern.

He moaned.  “What happened?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” his dad asked him.

Hiccup tried to shake his head to clear it, and an alarm went off, making him blink.  Bit by bit, his body was reporting in, and the news was pain.  Lots of it, in many different flavors.  Itchy-burning feeling from his back, a dull ache by his groin, a sharp stabbing pain by his leg, a pulling-tight sensation by his gut, a hot-burning feeling from his shoulder, a cramping sense of hollowness from his stomach...

He wanted to go back to sleep, but he didn’t see Astrid around...

Astrid. 

Right.

“I was talkin’ with Ast... but I don’t remember ‘bout what...” he slurred.

There was a rustling of fabric nearby, and a flurry of voices that sounded like Ruffnut and his wife...

Wait, wasn’t Ruffnut heading off somewhere?  For a something...?  What was she doing here?

They were talking hurriedly, and he strained and managed to turn his head in that direction. 

There was one of those privacy curtains there, with a blushing Fishlegs standing in front of it. 

Huh? 

Stoick leaned in.  “Do you remember what happened to you?”

“Yeah... I went for a walk to try out the new prosthetic...”

He squinted, trying to catch sight of Astrid.  A moment later, the curtain pulled aside and Astrid stepped forward. 

Hiccup drank in the sight of her.  She was wearing a light blouse, which was half-tucked into her third favorite pair of jeans, like she had dressed in a hurry...

And looked like she had barely slept in days.

“Ast...?”

She fell forward and hugged him, kissing him in a flurry all over, gasping out ‘Oh god,’ and ‘thank you’ over and over. 

Despite the pain, he awkwardly hugged her with the arm that hurt less, and a vague memory bubbled up.  “You said that you had a surprise for... me...?”

He caught but didn’t understand the significant looks being shared all around him, and then Astrid seemed to decide something and said, “It’s nothing important.”  She poked him in the nose a little bit hard.  “And _that’s_ for doing something stupid like calling me and pretending that everything was alright instead of calling an _ambulance!_ ”

Hiccup made a brief sound of pain, even as he knew what was coming next. 

She kissed him solidly on the lips, and then broke apart.  “And that’s... for everything else.”

“I’m sorry...” he said, remembering that moment of decision. 

“I know,” she said, and then looked up.  “Snotlout, could you get him something to eat if the nurse says that it’s okay?”

Hiccup’s stomach rumbled.  “God, I could eat a horse.”

“Given that you haven’t eaten anything in almost a week, yeah,” Astrid said wryly. 

He got a good look at her eyes; she’d clearly been crying. 

“How bad was it...?” he asked weakly.

She hesitated, and said, “Really bad.  Don’t you ever do that to me again, Hiccup Haddock!”

“Promise.  I won’t.”

“Good.  Rest.  We’ll get you out of here as soon as we can.”

“Okay.”  He closed his eyes and fell back asleep. 

###

**Epilogue: Sixteen months later**

Looking at Astrid curiously, her daughter wrapped her hand around the offered finger.

Astrid closed her eyes for a second, and then held her daughter tighter, kissing the top of her head.

They were in the hospital again. She hated the place--she wanted out, but unfortunately, they’d be there for a few more days for her to recover. Astrid wanted to scream at the nurses that she’d recover much faster at home, at least mentally. But she kept her mouth shut, just relieved that her baby girl had been born, healthy and in great condition.

Astrid looked at her husband, who was watching them, with a kind of quiet admiration in his eyes. He didn’t look relaxed, per se, but he wasn’t tense either. He too, must have just been relieved.

She had never told him about the first pregnancy.

She had pleaded for anyone who knew not to tell him. There was no point, no point at all in telling him something so painful, and then waiting for the inevitable self-blame. Hiccup was horribly noble, and she just wasn’t ready to talk about her unborn child as though it was anyone’s fault. It was a child, a baby, and it had passed away before knowing life.

So Astrid pretended like the baby had never existed. She pretended like one of the happiest moments in her life, when she had seen the positive results on the pregnancy test, had never happened. And she pretended like all the pain she had been in when she lost the baby was just something out of a story. Hiccup was left in the dark, and she preferred to keep it that way.

Her baby, her pain, her secret.

###

Hiccup looked at his wife and daughter as the newborn got her second-ever meal and smiled.  The scars from his assault still twinged occasionally, and he got reminded of ‘the time you were a stupid selfish romantic idiot’ on a regular basis from everybody.  He’d never live it down, but that was okay.  He, at least, was going to live.

Unlike their first child, who everybody pretended never existed around him, and he pretended that he didn’t know, as if he had never found out from the court documents.  He’d caused Astrid enough pain; he wasn’t going to force her to relive those horrible moments.  It was the least he could do, after how he had pretended that all was well when it had begun.

So Astrid acted as though it never happened, and he acted as though he knew nothing of it.

It was their little game. A game of pretend.

**Author's Note:**

> Astridthevalkyrie originally posted the first section of this on Tumblr, I added a bit to it with her permission, and it turned into a back-and-forth collaboration between the two of us. When she gets an AO3 account, I'll edit this to add her as a co-author.  
> EDITED: And credit is now given where credit is due: wikelia is her account name here and on FF.net


End file.
